13 October 2015, Abuja – A monthly report by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has indicated that the thermal electricity generating plants in the country consumed about 139 billion cubic feet (bcf) of natural gas, out of the 934 bcf produced in the country.
The report, which contains financial activities and operations of the NNPC from January to July 2015, showed that out of the 934 bcf produced for commercial activities, 210 bcf was dedicated to meet the oil industry’s supply obligation to the domestic market, with the power sector taking 139 bcf, leaving other sectors with 71 bcf.
From this volume, the thermal plants received an average of 656 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscf/d), to produce an average of 2,843 megawatts (MW) of electricity per day, thus contributing an average of 84.8 per cent generation capacity to the country’s overall daily power generation volume.
A breakdown of the seven months gas supply to the power sector indicates that in January, 20.8bcf was allocated to the sector.
However, the volume dropped to 18.1 bcf in February; picked up to 20.8 bcf again in March; dropped again to 18.2 bcf, and further declined to 16.5 bcf in May, before picking up to 20.4 bcf and 24.4 bcf in June and July respectively.
Monthly daily supplies within the period also averaged 672 mmscf/d, 646 mmscf/d, 672 mmscf/d, 605mmscf/d, 533mmscf/d, 679 mmscf/d and 786 mmscf/d respectively.
However, the report noted that just about 14 per cent of the total gas produced in the oil and gas industry was sent to the domestic market, leaving 43.5 per cent and 42.5 per cents for both the export market and non-commercialised gas.
From the non-commercialised volume, the report indicated that 475 bcf was reinjected; 87bcf used as upstream fuel while 161 bcf was flared to bring the total of non-commercialised gas within the seven month period to 723bcf, which was almost at parity with the exported gas.
According to the records of July as contained in the report, 7.3 per cent was the flare rate in the month, with 43 per cent of total gas production designated as non-commercialised gas.
“Out of the 255bcf of gas produced in July 2015, a total of 145bcf of gas was commercialised comprising of 35.4 and 110.1 BCF for the domestic and export market respectively. This translates to an average daily supply of 1,141mmscfd of gas to the domestic market and 3,552mmscf/d of gas supplied to the export market,” the report stated.
The report further explained that: “This implies that 57 per cent of the total gas produced was commercialised while the balance if 43 per cent was either reinjected, used as upstream fuel gas or flared. Gas flare rate was 7.3 per cent for the month of July 2015, i.e. 607mmscf/d compared with the 2015 year-to-date (YTD) average flare rate of 9.3 per cent i.e. 759 mmscf/d.”
It noted that from the 1,141 mmscf/d of gas supplied to the domestic market in July, about 786 mmscf/d, representing 68.9 per cent was used for gas-fired power plants while the balance of 355 mmscf/d or 32.1 per cent was supplied to other industries.
“Similarly, for the period of January-July an average of 991mmscfd of gas was supplied to the domestic market comprising of an average of 656mmscfd or (66.2 %) as gas supply to the power plants and 335mmscfd or (34.8%) as gas supply to industries. About 3,122mmscfd or 87.9 per cent of the export gas was sent to Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Company (NLNG) for July 2015 compared with a 2015YTD average of 2,965mmscfd.
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